Sacred Fire

affront to the god. So did the Istaran church. The First Son had been weak to the last Quarath idly wondered what poison he’d used.

“Dead,” said Sir Van sard, his fingers pressed to the corpse’s throat

Quarath rolled his eyes again. “Get the body out of here,” he said. “Burn it unhallowed, outside the city gates. This is an affront to the god’s sight.” He turned to go.

“Emissary?” the knight asked.

The elf stopped. “What is it now?”

“I think you should see this.”

Sir Vansard had a parchment in his hand. The ink shone on it, still wet. One of Quarath’s eyebrows rose. He gestured, and the knight brought it to him.

Dagenas tarn burmint, the message read, c trodeini fint.

Usas sifasom pulmas ispatrint, e bomo sas fumam ansint alib.

Rufuro banit e mulfam gnissit bid sas daubas e gormas mif onsomno.

Abo ourfam segit.

Doboram predit.

Cabo plobit.

Catmo e armufo parblefint.

Libo spigit on courdo.

Banbas pilsint.

Fro fram figorit.

Iupram brielit.

Nas farnas flifint do nas sonnas.

Igonfo bomam figorit fe retio.

Launo flonit, e ourfas spodo spladam boscit op mulfo.

Idumes, mulfo pila abagnit.

Tair opa homo, fe mufo, usas sculfit netum, bo balfam onnat!

The signs shall warn you, and they shall be thirteen.

The gods shall withdraw their hands from the world, and man shall face his doom alone.

The sky shall lament and beat the earth with its tears and cries of anguish.

Fear shall visit the land.

Light shall be devoured. Hope shall flee.

Darkness and despair shall be rekindled.

The flame shall fail on the hearth.

The plains will be cleansed.

Brother shall turn against brother.

Knowledge shall be veiled.

Our children shall bleed for our sins.

Nature shall turn against man in outrage.

The bounty shall end, and the blood of the land will wash the blot from the earth.

Finally, the very earth shall awaken!

If ever man, in pride, should challenge the gods, woe betide the world!

Quarath held the parchment tightly, his mouth twisted. These were the words of a man newly dead, and thus they were a sacred testament. They caused a stirring of fear deep within him. Yet Revando had been a usurper, a coward of the worst kind. What traitor did not wish doom upon his realm, when he himself faced doom?

“Eminence?” Sir Vansard asked. “What is it?”

He read the parchment again, to commit the words to memory. Then he shook his head, walked to the First Son’s body, and angrily crammed the missive into the man’s belt. The ink smeared as he did so, obscuring the writing.

“Nothing,” he said. “The raving of a madman. Let it burn with him.”

Chapter 22

Date Uncertain

Cathan saw the burning mountain often now, for there was little else to see in a world that was darkness, silence, and chill-a small room with stone walls and rushes on the floor, its arched ceiling low enough that he scraped his head on it whenever he stood up. There was a cot, a blanket, a chamberpot. There were no windows. The door was thick and heavy, admitting no light except for quick blinding stabs when his keepers appeared to give him food and water. That was the only way to mark the passing of time. Cathan soon lost count of the days.

Not that he cared about time any more. He was ruined. He knew he would dwell here, in the darkness and the silence and the cold, for the rest of his life.

Few in Istar knew of the imperial dungeons, hidden far below the Great Temple. Yet Cathan was one of those few, for he had often come here when he was part of the Divine Hammer. This was where the church brought its worst undesirables, the villains it did not burn… or sell into slavery, these days. The ones Cathan himself had imprisoned included leaders of death-cults, prelates of the dark gods, traitors against the empire. Some were probably still here, somewhere… moldering and mad from the unending solitude. He could hear their cries, sometimes, through the walls. His fate would be no different: No one ever left these dungeons except on a bier.

It hurt to think of Rath and Tancred-their bodies burnt by the Hammer along with Idar and his men, then scattered without ceremony as he watched. It hurt worse to think of Wentha, marched out of her home and through the Lordcity in shame, directly to the slave market. She was someone’s property, now-dwelling, if Tithian kept his promise, somewhere far away. That was Cathan’s only solace. When the Kingpriest brought down the gods’ wrath, his sister might survive.

But I will not, he thought I will be here when the hammer falls.

They’d brought him out of the cell once only, blindfolded. He’d known he was bound for the Gapo Furpribon, the Chamber of Interrogation. It was an open, empty room with a dais at one end where three large, gilded chairs looked down upon a pit with iron chains to bind a man to the floor. In the time before the Kingpriests, this had been the supreme place of torture, with all manner of horrific mechanisms and implements to inflict punishment. The church had outlawed such practices when it assumed power; now it belonged to the inquisitors.

When the guards finished shackling him and tore off his blindfold he was greeted by a trio of high priests in robes fringed with crimson. The church no longer had any need for torture. The inquisitors worked in subtler ways, plying him with tainted wine and vapors from a censer they placed at his feet. He didn’t know what drugs they gave him, but they sat there in stony silence, watching him for more than an hour after the guards brought him in. Then they set to work.

“We know about Revando,” they told him. “He is dead. You cannot protect him now. Tell us, who else in the church was a part of this conspiracy?”

“Your sister had many friends in Lattakay. Did she ever speak of others who chose to betray the Lightbringer?”

“What of the magic you used? Where did Revando meet with the wizards?”

“Were there any in the knighthood who belonged to your cause?”

Despite the drags, despite their inuring:, honeyed voices, Cathan did all he could to resist them. He laughed like a madman, sang hymns and children’s songs, spat and cursed and fought his bonds. Even as he did this, he